Ho Chi Minh City

As I mentioned in my last post, I'm in the Rex Hotel in Ho Chi Minh City. Shelly was here for a night before heading back to Hong Kong to work. It's been an incredibly convenient location for my work here, and it fulfills a long-time desire of mine.


The Rex is one of the city's most famous hotels. It's been there for over a hundred years, and its roof-top bar was a favorite hangout for war correspondents in the 1960s and 1970s. It occasionally shows bits of its state-owned status (there's a perplexing maze of hallways and elevators and a bar located in a most unlikely spot), but it was comfortable and convenient if a bit cheesy. This crown design was replicated on another lamp in our room and on the bed's headboard, and the room's chairs were shaped like thrones, if thrones were made from wicker.


Most law firms in HCMC are located in the same part of town, so I walked back and forth past the same landmarks time and time again. They're good, photogenic places, and it was a pleasant walk. I really like the post office. I'm left wondering, though, if post offices in the US couldn't be improved by enormous paintings of George Washington hanging in the lobby.



The outside of the building is covered with the names of great scientists, including Ampere, Foucault, Ohm and Benjamin Franklin:


The other landmarks I walked past every day were the Notre Dame cathedral and city hall, with its bronze statue of Ho Chi Minh in the foreground:



That's most of what I saw, but I did find a few other interesting photos in HCMC. Harry Potter came out there the same day it came out everywhere else. By the end of the day, there were bound, photocopied fakes available on the street. The street vendors I talked to were asking US$10 to start. I'm sure I could have talked them down, but I didn't want to buy a counterfeit book and so my heart wasn't in the bargaining.


I took this relatively interesting shot -- it shows how prevalent motorbikes are in Saigon these days -- from one of the offices I visited.


I found this fire hydrant from Alabama that must be 40 years old, although its manufacturer seems to still be in business.


And finally, Colonel Sanders has come to Vietnam, where you start to realize that he bears a striking resemblance to Ho Chi Minh.


Of course, as the saying goes in Vietnam, Harlan Sanders was only a colonel. Ho was president.